The After Effect
by half-sleeping
Summary: Sequel to the Tsuna effect. This is their morning after. X27.


Title: The After Effect  
Rating: Pg-13 for swearing and implied sex, because I FAIL at smut.  
Pairing - Xanxus/Tsuna.  
Notes: This is the morning after of The Tsuna Effect. You don't really need to read that to read this. All you need to know is the Tsuna effect and this is the morning after a bout of drunken sex for our intrepid heroes. 

The Tsuna Effect: Assassins, Mafiosos, or just general everybody who tries to kill Sawada Tsunayoshi and, inevitably, fails, will see the error of their ways, turn ways, and spend the rest of their lives in something akin to total and utter devotion to the tenth leader of the Vongola family.

.0.

Over breakfast, served by a famously unflappable pair of housekeepers who are old mafia retainers, Xanxus gives thanks to a god he does not believe in for being ambidextrous. This allows him to, in between gulping down the enormously greasy fry-up of a breakfast (which none of the brats and Squalo are able to look at without turning green), shoot anyone who so much as opens their fucking mouth to ask for someone to pass the bacon.

Every single one of the trash except Tsuna and the Arcobaleno looks as though they're dying to discuss the small matter of, oh, Tsuna being in the bed of someone who, rather famously, hates him and would like nothing better than to see him dead and buried. The babies look interested only in their breakfasts, but Tsuna is red- _red_ red, not just from the marks Xanxus has put on him (He was always going to hell, but this will be an entirely different circle of it) but from enormous, painful embarrassment and oh-god-I-remember-what-I-did-last-night, and not looking at anyone. Especially. not. Xanxus.

Which, frankly, is just about as good as shouting to everybody that he and Xanxus slept together last night, but Xanxus is willing to let that slide just as long as no one, not a single person, says a _single fucking __**word**_.

Several large scorch marks bear testament to his determination that this be so. He'll have to foot the bill for the refurbishing, but he could care less.

None of the brats are quite enough on top of things to challenge him, struggling with a combination of alcohol and dime-store drugs (none of Varia are junkies on his watch, their poison is violence, pure and simple), and he broke the Varia to heel long, long ago, which is good, because now not even Xanxus, coming off a wild (a small part of his shriveled soul recoils at the thought) night himself, can handle more than two of the brats at once, and he's bitterly aware that their usual tendency to never work together, _ever_ has no defense whatsoever against the Tsuna effect.

The two most dangerous, aka the two who more or less didn't touch a drop last night, Mukuro and Hibari, are also keeping quiet, the convict alternating between looking unsettlingly amused and unsettlingly unamused, having elected to spare Chrome the hangover and unwilling to miss the drama that Xanxus will not allow to begin. The marked eye watches Tsuna, Xanxus and Hibari all at once, considering, careful.

No one is immune to the Tsuna effect, as the two prove, Hibari's earlier attack of minionly concern only having been halted by Xanxus pulling out both the flame and his guns.

Xanxus inhales enough food to keep him going through the Arcobaleno's idea of training until they'll be released for the night, and with a last parting shot to Gokudera's head, picks up Tsuna and Reborn by the scruff of their collars and heads out to the dangerously mountainous, remote area Reborn has had them training for the past few days like a man marching to his doom.

.o.

The morning, afternoon and evening pass in a sort of haze of exhaustion and battle, watching Tsuna get better and better- _and how does he __**do**__ that, just ups the level every time_- while Reborn clucks and watches, a knee-high sentry bearing watch over the future of a kingdom.

Battle is easy and familiar, and the remote, nearly dead look in Tsuna's eyes, empty of hate or violence or bloodlust, puts him in mind of a puppet with his strings cut. This is nothing like the last time he went all out against the Vongola heir (he thinks this with less bitterness than he has before), there's nothing like as much at stake as there was before.

Tsuna won't fight like he did then for anything less, but it's frenetic enough that neither of them are any shape to stop Reborn when the tiny hitman calls a halt to the training, nods to them both, and shoots down a rockslide that traps the two of them alone in a rocky valley with sheer walls with night coming on fast.

This, Xanxus feels, bears repeating to himself. They are _bloody fucking __**alone**__in a __**goddamn empty valley**_.

"REBORN!" screeches Tsuna, "What- REBORN!"

The silence indicated that Reborn, even if he was still in hearing range, was indisposed towards answering.

… Arcobaleno or not, world's greatest hitman or not, Xanxus is going to get hold of the bastard, and _hurt him like he's never been hurt before_. He's never been angrier in his _life_, how dare that fucking-

"Ahhh!" says Tsuna. "Why does Reborn always do this sort of thing?!"

Xanxus looks at Tsuna. If he'd lived with that dead baby walking for as long as he had, then maybe that explained the ever-increasing resemblance the brat bore to a Buddha or a saint or some shit. Anyone who could endure this sort of childish stunts constantly could endure anything.

Mind working furiously, he stares around and begins to sort of formulate an escape route.

"Oi," he says. "Sawada, if-"

"Tsuna," says Tsuna. "You can call me that. Um. We're friends, right?"

Not for the first time Xanxus stares at the Tenth leader of the Vongola family, completely at a loss for words. Not for the last, either. And- he feels- Sawad-_Tsuna_ is _so damn __**stupid**_, so gentle and kind and utterly unassuming, he should have been chewed up and spit out by the world of guns and crime and death and violence long ago, but he hasn't, _he hasn't_.

He shouldn't be.

Xanxus gropes frantically for the words _you're not my friend_, and misses them by a long shot. He's never been good with words that aren't threats or orders of some sort.

Tsuna smiles at him uncertainly, and also looks around for a way out, while Xanxus's head explodes behind him.

Not thinking- because not thinking _works_, Xanxus walks forward and- just _takes_ what he wants, like he always has and will.

The difference is that this time it's given more willingly then it properly should be.

And this time, in the midst of everything, when Xanxus bites Tsuna, _hurts_ him, Tsuna?

He bites him _right back_. Like it doesn't even matter.

This is sort of when Xanxus begins to think that he could follow this idiot for _life_.

-omake- (because I am addicted to them)

"Well," Reborn said, twitching his fedora to better angle, as he was besieged with questions about Xanxus and Tsuna, "We can't have a situation where the head of the Varia is in opposition with the Boss, now can we?" He considered. "In fact," he said cheerfully, "It's good thing that Tsuna took matters into his own hands. I don't think Xanxus will have any problems with Tsuna after this, do you?"

-end-


End file.
